Oconee ranked amongst healthiest Georgia counties

ATLANTA | Once again, suburban counties are the healthiest in Georgia, while rural counties remain the least healthy, according to a 2014 ranking released Wednesday.

Forsyth ranked as the healthiest county in Georgia in 2014, followed by Fayette, Oconee, Gwinnett and Cherokee.

The rankings were reported in the fifth annual County Health Rankings, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The listing reflects how counties are doing on 29 factors that influence health, including smoking, obesity, high school graduation rates, employment, physical inactivity and access to healthy foods.

The same five counties were also at the top, and in the same order, in the 2013 rankings. All are in the Atlanta metropolitan area except for Oconee, which ranked third.

Oconee County ranked No. 1 in a secondary ranking included in the data that estimates the future health of a county based on health behaviors, clinical care, socio-economic factors and physical environment.

Clarke County ranked 16th overall and 12th in the secondary ranking.

In other overall rankings, Oglethorpe County was ranked 20th, Barrow County was 38th, Jackson County 42nd and Madison County 113th.

The five counties in the poorest health, starting with least healthy, are Clay, Taliaferro, Warren, Stewart and Turner.

The contrast between counties can be stark.

In Clay County, for example, one in three adults is obese, as compared to 28 percent of Georgians overall. More than half of its children are living in poverty, versus a state average of 27 percent. Clay also has a high teen birth rate and a lower ratio of primary care doctors per capita than the Georgia average.

Meanwhile, Forsyth County has fewer adults who smoke and a lower rate of obesity than the state average. The county's unemployment rate, and percentage of uninsured, are much lower than the average for Georgia.

Marsha Davis, associate dean at the University of Georgia's College of Public Health, said Wednesday that suburban counties have greater access to health care, healthy food and physical activity opportunities than rural areas.

To close the gaps between counties, she added, the state's public health system needs to be strengthened.

The authors of the report said that nationally, this year's rankings show that people living in the least healthy counties are twice as likely to have shorter lives as people living in the healthiest counties. Unhealthy counties also have twice as many children living in poverty and twice as many teen births as the healthiest counties.

This year's rankings feature several new measures including housing, transportation, and access to mental health providers.

"The County Health Rankings show us how health is influenced by our everyday surroundings - where we live, learn, work and play," said Bridget Catlin, director of the County Health Rankings. She added that the listings "often provide the spark for businesses, community planners, policymakers, public health, parents and others to work together for better health."

Here is a link to the Georgia rankings: http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/#!/georgia/2014/overview.

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